AWAAL GATA takes a look at Abuja’s hospitality industry and how the players are persevering to overcome its challenges
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT), probably because it is the nation’s capital and many citizens as well as foreigners converge in the city on a daily basis, hospitality business is very active in the city.
However, there is no reason to doubt the fact that properly managing hotels and meeting the high level of expectations by customers are huge tasks. Those in the saddle, undoubtedly, face series of challenges in provision of service at that level, even as a number of other external factors still govern how profitably and efficient the hotels are run.
Investigation has revealed that government’s patronage has remained a major factor that keeps Abuja hotels in business, through direct or indirect patronage.
Blueprint’s investigation, especially as it affects revenue differential of a few hotels within a specified period of time, reveals that patronage soared when there were huge government, government-induced or party events, at which time the hotel rooms were fully booked.
“It was at such times that customers become stranded and must have to go as far as satellite towns to take up hotel accommodation,” a manager in one of the popular hotels in Wuse district told Blueprint under the condition of anonymity as he was not permitted to talk to the press by his boss.
According to him, “Abuja hotels rely so very much on government patronage and on what happens in the government scene to function.”
Brisk business comes for Abuja hotels when there are events, Blueprint learnt.
The situation is unlike periods when there are no events. The hotels then recorded unoccupied rooms.
For Abuja hotels, maintenance remains the watchword. Perhaps, it is the fact that customers in the territory must not compromise with standards that put the managers on their toes.
To that end, the hotels undertake massive investment in maintenance. It is very common to find the hotels in Abuja carrying out major overhaul of its facility to meet up with the expected quality.
It is common to find the hotels installing new generators, air conditioners and other equipment. The upkeep of the facilities is what must take place whether revenue increased or not, if the particular hotels must continue to be in business.
In Gwarimpa, Blueprint was at a hotel to find major renovation work going on. Both the manager and regular customers interacted disclosing that such renovations happen intermittently.
According to the manager, “For us in this place, we do not play with maintenance. We do not allow a customer to come in here and complain of unsatisfactory service or that something malfunctioned in his or her room.
“Take for example, if you had come here early December of last year, you would have met us doing big renovation. That was when we did the last repainting. This is June and I am telling you something that happened just barely six months ago.
“Yes, we undertake to carry out the repainting because we want to maintain the beauty of our hotel. Beauty is everything. We want to keep same taste for customers.
“And it is not only repainting that we did, if you enter the rooms and even the corridors, you will not need to be told that our air conditioners have new impetus. We serviced all of them and acquired new ones. We undertook fresh plumbing work and did retiling of some rooms and corridors. We used new colours that are much more attractive. There is no way you won’t just notice that work was carried out,” he said.
For the customers, the hotel keeps faith with providing excellent services and tastes.
Kabir Muhammad, a guest, said, “I have been lodging in this hotel for, about, three years now and nothing has made me not to want to come back.”
However, it was also gathered that top-class hotel owners in the territory face challenges following ban on importation of certain items which they needed in order to improve aesthetics in their hotels. It was gathered that most of them preferred furniture made abroad to local ones.
They want to get the right quality in all the items they want and in many cases, cannot but import them. This costs much more money and generally poses challenge to them.
Apart from costs, a manager in a hotel located in one of the high-brow areas of Abuja revealed that one of the challenges he faces in managing the hotel is locating and employing skilled staff. This, he said, is apart from the challenge of providing quality food.
“Managing a hotel, maintaining credibility and staying in business require engaging not just skilled staff but staff with integrity and high morals. It goes beyond hiring people; it definitely does.
“Imagine having your customers bring complaints of missing items in their hotel rooms or of unsatisfactory services by staff. It goes beyond making money to preserving a name.
“Definitely, it could work elsewhere; it could be tolerated in other areas, but I can tell you, I have come to realise it is a taboo of sort here. You dare not have satan as your staff members here.
“Hiring credible staff here is a burden. Then, comes retraining of those personnel too if you really want consistent quality services.”
The manager added that, “It does seem to me that of all the challenges we face in running hotels here in Abuja, having in the staff list credible men and women is an asset. This is so because it is human beings that can handle the equipments and make them to work perfectly; it is people that run the system so hiring them is a huge task.”
The city centre and the satellite towns share almost the same story as far as the hospitality indistry is concerned.